This book could definitely have used some pronunciation helps along with the foreign words. Many of these phrases I've read in books but I've never heard pronounced. Now that I know what they mean, I still can't use them in conversation because I still don't know how to pronounce them!

It was a quick read. Each foreign phrase or word was accompanied by a paragraph detailing the first use in English, the foreign meaning, the English meaning, and how it is used in English today. That wasn't bad. It was followed by a use in a humorous sentence (although one sentence misspelled the word and another sentence didn't even use the word - that was funny!)and sometimes a (not very funny) cartoon.

I learned we get the word Robot from a Czech word.

At some point I realized this book was British. Some things about modern usage seemed a bit off. When I got to a description of the word Kabob now being a common bar food I thought "What? No! Hot wings! It's beer and hot wings! I've never had a kabob in my life. (Well, not entirely true as I think I had a kabob at a Middle Eastern restaurant in the late 90's.) Then I looked at the front and it all made sense - yes, the modern English usage is British usage.

Fun to glance through but not especially recommended.

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This book is a fun and easy read and would appeal to anyone who has an interest/curiosity about the origins of the words that we use in our everyday language. There are some surprises contained within its pages and then there are ones that make perfect sense. It also manages to highlight just how much we take for granted in our language usage. I really enjoyed reading this book and am likely to go back to it many times in my life. You can easily pick this book up and read wherever you want in it - it doesn’t need to be read from cover to cover if you don’t want to. ( )

The author seemed pretty full of herself. Admittedly, an enormous number of English words descend from French, especially here in America where French trappers and clergy penetrated deep into the continent. ( )

I am a word nerd. My favorite part of the National Spelling Bee is when the competitors ask for the definition or derivation of a word. I find it completely and totally fascinating to know the origins (sometimes far afield from our current usage) of the words we use in English today. English is such a polyglot language, almost a living organism picking up words from other languages that are just so appropriate for something we have yet to name. This book takes many of these words and phrases and informs the curious reader from whence they came.

Set up in a dictionary format with words and their explanations listed alphabetically, there are some delightfully tongue in cheek comments scattered throughout the text, especially in the example sentences. And the occasional cartoons illustrating some of the phrases are a complete hoot. I was surprised by how many of the words for which I already knew the origins. Even more interestingly, I use quite a few of these fabulous foreign imports in my daily life. I guess the fact that the words are listed in this book means they aren't as common as I'd thought and would explain the funny glazed expression people sometimes get on their faces when they are listening to me. (But really, who doesn't know what debacle means? Seriously.) This type of book probably doesn't have a widespread appeal but it is perfect reading for your average English major and even minor. Personally I thought it was just plain interesting. Now I have to get up the courage to read the one about math terms! ( )

This book is filled with some odd, funny, and all-around great stories on the evolution of many words, such as Schadenfreude, Wanderlust, and my favorite thing to wear – Pajamas. However, even though I am a lover of words, I still learned quite a few new things after reading the book. My favorite was the history of the word Frottage – Rubbing (French). “The word comes from the French verb “frotter,” to “rub,” and for a while it was a psychiatric name for a sexual disorder characterized by the desire tp rub up against another person without his or her consent (now known as “frotterism”). It does have a more innocent meaning in the art world, where it refers to the technique for making brass rubbings, but theses days it’s generally reserved for the kind of consensual, through-the-clothes body rubbing that we might otherwise be forced to call “dry humping.”" (Rhodes, p.77)

You can read the rest of my review here:

http://thegirlfromtheghetto.wordpress.com/2010/03/16/a-certain-%e2%80%9cje-ne-sa... ( )